The Peacock Committee and UK

Broadcasting Policy

Edited by Thomas O'Malley and Janet Jones

(London: Palgrave Macmillan)

At a time when a radical reorientation of UK broadcasting policy is underway, this book offers a critical assessment of the current state of Public Service Broadcasting. Sir Alan Peacock's seminal 1986 report into the financing of PSB has been credited with reshaping the broadcasting policy landscape and changing the way we think about the provision of broadcast goods in our society - Ofcom has been dubbed the 'child of Peacock'. This volume looks at the origins, conduct and impact of the report and offers scenarios for the future of broadcasting in a digital media ecology.

It will introduce readers to thinking from the report's principal authors, Sir Alan Peacock, Sir Samuel Brittan and Peter Jay, alongside leading media historians.

CONTENTS:

Acknowledgements

Preface

Notes on Contributors

Introduction; T.O'Malley

Planning and Competition; T.O'Malley

Liberalism and Broadcasting Policy from the 1920s to the 1960s; T.O'Malley

Technology, Politics and Economics 1962-84; T.O'Malley

Twenty and Thirty and Forty Years On: A Personal Retrospect on Broadcasting Policy Since1967; P.Jay

The 'Politics' of Investigating Broadcasting Finance; A.Peacock

The Fight for Freedom in Broadcasting; S.Brittan

It was the BBC Wot Won It: Winning the Peacock Report for the Corporation, or How the BBCResponded to the Peacock Committee; J.Seaton & A.McNicholas

Paradigm Found: The Peacock Report and the Genesis of a New Model UK Broadcasting Policy; R.Collins

The Unbearable Light of the Market: Broadcasting in the Nations and Regions of Britain post-Peacock; K.Williams

PSB 2.0. – UK Broadcasting Policy after Peacock; J.Jones

Impressions, Influences and Indebtedness; A.Peacock

Conference Witness Testimonies

Appendix 1 – Peacock Report: Recommendations

Appendix 2 -Biographies of Members of the Peacock Committee

Notes

Bibliography

Index

TOM O'MALLEY is Professor of Media Studies at Aberystwyth University, UK.

JANET JONES is a Principal Lecturer in Journalism at the University of the West of England, UK.

August 2009 Hardback £52.00 978-0-230-52474-3

Order via: www.palgrave.com,